Stay Home, Stay Healthy

Yesterday and today my next-door neighbors had several friends come and go from their apartment. Today they were visiting a third neighbor down the street. I could hear them talking loudly on his front porch. Like a number of people in my community they are ignoring the social distancing recommendations that were issued by the state governor and subsequently by the US president earlier this month.

A short while ago I read The New York Times article, “Liberty University Brings Back Its Students, and Coronavirus, Too.” While other universities had told their students to stay home after the spring break, had moved their classes online, and had closed their residence halls, Jerry Farwell Jr., the President of Liberty University, had reopened the university. Since then a number of Coronavirus cases have been reported at Liberty University. Needless to say, the residents of Lynchburg, Virginiana, are upset.

My initial response as I was reading the article was, “This is madness!! COVID-19 is a real threat to Americans. People are dying from the virus. It is not a part of a conspiracy to deny President Trump a second term.”

Before I retired, I was involved in social work, primarily doing child welfare casework. I am familiar with the different ways that people will react when they are confronted with a serious problem. They may own the problem and do something about it. They may deny the existence of the problem, its nature, its seriousness, or its extent. They may redefine the problem. One of the tasks of a social worker is to help the client to recognize the problem and to cooperate with the social worker and others in remedying it.

Sometimes a client will be a part of a family system in which some members of the family recognize the problem while other members do not. The latter may encourage the client’s denial of the problem’s existence, nature, seriousness, and extent.

I see this dynamic at work at the national, state, and local levels here in the United States where the COVID-19 pandemic is concerned. This explains at least in part why one segment of the population ignores or openly flouts the public health measures that have been implemented to reduce the spread of the virus and to alleviate the strain that the outbreak of the virus places upon our health care system.

The number of identified Cornavirus cases in my community has increased to three. For these three cases there is mostly likely a larger number of unidentified cases. Those infected may be asymptomatic or they have not reached the stage where they are recognizably suffering from the virus.

COVID-19 is highly contagious. It is one of those diseases in which an individual may not experience symptoms or feel ill but can transmit the virus by direct or indirect contact with other people.

On the other hand, simple public health measures like self-isolation, social distancing, washing hands, not touching one’s face, wearing face masks and surgical gloves, routinely disinfecting surfaces on which the virus can survive for long periods of time, testing, and quarantine can reduce the virus’s spread.

We are learning more about COVID-19 every day. In “What happens to people's lungs when they get coronavirus?” respiratory physician John Wilson explains how the virus can impact human lungs.

“The Coronavirus Is Sending Lots Of Younger People To The Hospital” emphasizes that young people are not immune to the virus. They can become infected with the virus and in turn infect other people.

Below I provided links to several articles which draw attention not only to the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic but also the complexities of the US response to the spread of the virus. Among these complexities is the personality of the present occupant of the White House.

Coronavirus US Live: Trump Extends Distancing Guidelines and Attacks Media at Briefing
US Could See Millions of Coronavirus Cases and 100,000 or More Deaths, Fauci Says
Trump is Bragging on Twitter about His Coronavirus Briefings Getting Lots of Viewers
Dr. Anthony Fauci Defends Trump, Coronavirus Task Force amid Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory Attacks against Him
The Coronavirus Is the Worst Intelligence Failure in US History
President Donald Trump Takes the Right Way Forward on Coronavirus

I was born in England shortly after the conclusion of World War II. During the war years everyone was encouraged to do their bit in the war effort. To combat the virus here in the United States and elsewhere everyone needs to adopt the same attitude and to observe the recommended public health measures, to give priority to the safety of their community, and not to hoard essential supplies.

Whether we want to admit it, we are involved in a war and the enemy that we are fighting is a virus. It is not the time to be careless about our own health and the health of others. It is time for everyone to step up and to do their bit.